Sometimes I grow so cynical about what is happening in the world around me I wonder why I bother to study it.

I want to retreat to my school bus in the woods and let the world pass me by. Sometimes after the anguish subsides my warped sense of humor slips in and I get an idea. Now. I am a man and have no plans or desires for that to change but I sometimes can't help but wonder just what's wrong with the most of us men. So I'm doing a little thinking outside of the box here. Warning! This may not be so funny.

Women - why aren't you running the world? Frankly I'm disappointed in you. Men are still far too dominant for their own good, and consequently we've made a testosterone poisoned mess out of just about everything we've touched: politics, the economy, religion, the environment, everything we've touched is a gigantic man-wrought mess.

By all rights we should be begging you for your help, but we're not, because we're too stupid and too proud to do so. We swagger around convincingly, and that's what it's all about.

The swaggering was fine in primitive times for snaring a mate or scaring off an enemy, but the world we've somehow managed to build is a little more complex at this juncture. We've created stock exchanges and nuclear warheads, super computers and space stations. It's all too easy for some of us to swagger our way into big trouble without even realizing we've done so. Well, the time is up and we've had our turn at bat. It's time for the Rise of the Ladies.

We don't need just a few women in conspicuous positions of power scattered here and there. We need a 10-year prohibition on all forms of male power. Seriously: a decade in which men don't have control of anything, from the television remote control upwards. Imagine the consequences. For one thing, there would be an instant and massive reduction in armed conflict around the globe.

Sure, nations would routinely gripe about each other in secret (most likely with a new, hair-curling viciousness), but there'd be fewer intercontinental blow-ups and a much lower body count.

You won't have to trash us all. Some of us may be good for menial labor, building and fixing machines and the like. Some of us can be put into a fenced off area with a ball to run and beat each other for yours and our own entertainment.

The economy should clearly be run by women. Big city boys are idiots, plain and simple. Look at them. Listen to them. Watch what they do. Consider the carnage of just the past 10 years alone. What were these idiots thinking? Even in the present they're still at it.

In any sane world they would all be herded into a shed and blasted with water hoses until they promised to stop.

Everything they say, think, do, watch, read and fill up their iPods with is awful. Even their girlfriends are awful. Straight women, reading this: if your partner is a big city boy, leave him. Leave him now. Dump him with a text message, right this very second.

It'll hurt for about six days, then your life will improve beyond measure. Dump that little number-swapping idiot who dares call himself a man. Push him into the shed with the other frauds and train the cold water on them all. Lock the door and let them shiver a while.

Men love machines, because machines remind them of themselves. As a result, men quickly became very very good at building machines and then driving them fast and recklessly yelling "look at me, I'm something!" This was cute for a while, but the novelty's worn off now that the planet's teetering on the brink of becoming a burned out cinder. Women, for all of our sakes: just lock us in a room with some Legos or something. I'm sorry, but most of us are just too stupid to run or save the planet. Looks like you'll have to clean up our messes once again. Mankind's depending on you.

"This is all very well, but none too realistic," thinks the female reader. "Men aren't just going to hand over the reins that easily. I know what men are like. They're self-righteous and stubborn - just like women, but worse."

Oh, you silly, silly you. We have you brainwashed. See, that's what our incessant, continuous swaggering was all about: pretending to be more complex and dangerous than we actually are.

In truth your suspicions are correct: we're very, very simple. We're lazy and we like food and sex. That's all there is to us. Literally: that's it. From Einstein to Barack Obama, from Copernicus to Joe Six-pack. The core software we run on could easily fit in the memory of a digital watch circa 1975 without even taxing the battery.

And women you know this. You know this of course, but it's so dazzlingly obvious you actually doubt its truth.

The only mistake you women make is in crediting men with far more mystery than they're capable of. We're impulsive yet ploddingly predictable, and you'd best learn to love us for it because it's just about all we can muster. That's why we screwed the entire planet up. We didn't mean to. We're men, that's all.

And now for something completely different, it's time for you to push us off the podium and take charge for a decade. If only as an experiment to see what happens. I for one would welcome new overlords. Give us our pretty toys and our daily beer and confine us to the sofa for 10 whole years. Keep us out of power and you can save the world.



Mike Veldman is an engineer. He lives in Stillwater.